Firstly, I configured my mobile phone for internet access, this was probably the hardest bit due to figuring out the best way to configure the bluetooth connection. I happen to be using a Lynksys Bluetooth dongle to a SonyEricsson p900.

Next step was to configure a VPN link to my home server. I needed to do this as it's not possible to access my car PC through the internet from home directly. When the VPN link is up and running I can communicate to my car PC just as though it was sitting next to me in my home LAN. Also, this makes things that bit more secure.

Next was to figure a way to get the serial data from my GPS unit from the car to my home server. For this I used a combination of Comfoolery and Lantronix com port redirector. Comfoolery takes your com port and makes it available through an ip address and port number. The Lantronix software is able to take a local com port and send it to a remote ip address.

You with me so far?

I installed the Comfoolery software on my car PC to provide a car based ip com port. I then installed the Lantronix software on both my car pc and home server. This allows me to provide local comports on both the car pc and home server providing GPS data. This is important as I need a GPS signal in the car for my navigation software and also a GPS signal at home for my tracking software. Simply configure your mapping and navigation software to the com port that Lantronix provides.

Lastly, I used KeepRAS to open the internet connection and VPN connection automatically in the car and also to re-establish the links should they drop. Now all I need to do is start the car and drive off, the car can be tracked from home in real time.

Well, if she is out in the car I know where she is and when she will get back! Now I can time it perfectly to get off the PC at home before she arives back. You know, I could be doing the ironing or something!

Well, if she is out in the car I know where she is and when she will get back! Now I can time it perfectly to get off the PC at home before she arives back. You know, I could be doing the ironing or something!

CoPilot Live does this too. You can give people a tracking ID then login to live.alk.com and it will give you a map with your vehicles’ location on it.

It also has some more advanced features like the ability for someone to send you new address and it will automatically add them into your current route. You can also send text messages to the driver and he can respond to them with the pre-selected answers you provide.

Is there any software that one can load on the PC to plot the location on a map, and also to update the location automatically? or are you basically using the com port mapping to run GPS software "thinking" it is local?